Like Sunlight and Moonlight
by rubyshards
Summary: A collection of drabbles entailing love, rivalry, first kisses taste like strawberries romance, and everything else in between. Information on each individual drabble is provided. Mostly centered around Seifer, Squall, and their relationship.
1. Emo Kids Taste Like Strawberries

**Title: **Emo Kids Taste Like Strawberries  
**Rating**: T  
**Pairing: **SeiferxSquall  
**Summary: **Squall should stop making decisions, because they aren't getting him anywhere.  
**Notes: **I blame my addiction to strawberries and Yuu-chan, over on LJ, for this.

* * *

Squall had trained himself to be prepared for anything that might be tossed his way.

Garden had drilled it into his very being, had imprinted his mind with ideal plans for every possible instance in imagination, and he knew nothing else, he had been at it for so long. And if there ever had been anything else, he didn't remember it, so it didn't matter all that much anyway.

Squall Leonhart liked to believe that nothing could surprise him. That he was prepared for everything that could possibly be thrown at him, that nothing could catch him off guard.

"-even paying attention to me?"

At least, he had though that, until Seifer had walked through the door, hands in his pockets, tan face scrunched up in irritation over some menial thing, and had grabbed him by his shoulders, sometime during the midst of a rather large and rather violent argument that they had become engaged in, proceeding thereafter to toss him down on the tiny wooden table in the common room of the dorm. Thus leaving a grand total of two inches between their faces and a rather flustered, out-of-breath Seifer perched between his legs.

Squall had also liked to think that he didn't blush, because it was such a weak and girly thing to do, and he wanted nothing to do with it, but that was obviously not the case. He found himself squirming under Seifer's hot breath on his mouth and hipbones digging into his, and he flushed, wriggled under the weight holding him down like a trapped animal, and very much wanted to get away from the man above him.

He was desperately trying to ignore the fact that his blush wasn't just on his cheeks.

Roughly, he swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat, tilting his head to the side and away from the gentle pants washing over his skin that were slowly melting through his resolve and fogging up his mind.

"Seifer."

Of all of the things that Squall had believed in his life, he had been absolutely _positive _that he would _not _lose his first kiss at the age of sixteen, that he had no interest in anyone whatsoever, and, above all else, that he would never, _ever_ kiss Seifer Almasy.

It became very clear that he should stop making such decisions as of now, because they never seem to get him anywhere.

Seifer's hands clamped down on each side of his face and thin lips smashed against his mouth before he could even make a move to prevent such a thing from happening, and he decided that he really _hadn't _prepared himself for everything after all, because he _shouldn't_ be kissing Seifer back right now, and he shouldn't be enjoying this nearly as much as he currently was, and he _shouldn't _be making such a horrible, weak noise down in the back of his throat, because it was only making matters _worse._

He was also very certain that Seifer should _not _be laughing right now, that grin spread over his face, a glimmer of mirth in his jade green eyes, and Squall suddenly wanted to lean up against the body holding him down and smack Seifer as hard as his shaking arms would let him, because there was absolutely nothing funny about this situation.

"What?"

Seifer's grin only widened at his question, and he leaned down, running the tip of his tongue over Squall's bottom lip, not really sure if what he's doing is normal or not, but not really caring, before he laughed out loud one more time.

"I never would have guessed that the Ice Prince wore strawberry flavored lip gloss."


	2. Charcoal Pencils

**Title**: Charcoal Pencils  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Character**: Squall  
**Summary**: Charcoal doesn't come in different colors.  
**Notes**: Mainly, I wanted to write aboutlittle Squall. I firmly believe that, had he not been a Knight, he would have been an artist.

* * *

Squall has this spot. He doesn't talk about it, he doesn't think about it very often, and he prefers to keep it to himself. It's his 'special spot,' or so he calls it. A little nook in the corner of the beach, tucked beneath a fallen, dark gray rock that collapsed during last year's big storm and to form a perfect little cave that's invisible unless one is standing right in front of it. He pulled out a little entrance, dug a way through the smaller rocks that had fallen, and filled it with an old blanket and a pillow that Matron kept tucked up in one of the closest of the orphanage. It's just big enough to hold only him and his sketchpad, a little pouch of thick charcoal pencils that Matron bought for him for Christmas a few years back, and that bedding, but it's comfortable in there.

There's a perfect view of the ocean out to the right. The waves come close to the little place at high tide, licking at the entrance, but they know not to come in, and they only splash around the tips of his toes when he sticks his bare feet out on the hot afternoon sand from the tiny opening. It's the perfect picture to sketch, and he's getting pretty good at it, with all of this practice.

To the left he can see the very tip of the orphanage. They can't see him, where he's at, but sometimes, he just sits out there and watch the others as they run around, playing war or building sand castles with little motes and little beds for Selphie's little doll with the curly blonde hair and scratched, painted face. He likes watching the others. It lets him think, observe, without them knowing it. It makes him feel a little bit better that he knows them more than they probably know themselves.

Neither direction really compares to what lies directly ahead, out over the beach and running up along the grass of the plains nearby, though.

When he sneaks out at night, carrying his ever present sketchbook and an extra blanket under his arm to ward off the creeping night's chill, if he gets there at the perfect timing, the absolute _perfect_, he can see the sunrise. It creeps up over the horizon, a fiery beast bringing the light of day with it, and the beach glitters like a thousand little broken pieces of glass, the ocean a gentle, soothing symphony of noise in the background (he doesn't care much for symphonies, but he makes the exception for the one that the sea plays for him at night).

He wants to draw that, more than anything else. He wants to capture the sunset, capture the rays of dull orange and red light and spill it out onto his paper, almost like taking the rays themselves and using them as his pens. It'd probably be the only way he could ever manage to accomplish it, but he knows that that's silly. You can't pluck the rays of the sun out of the sky, he knows that, and you can't paint the rolling sound of the ocean, and he knows that, too.

He's tried every night since he's found this little spot, his workshop and secret base and 'special spot' all to himself, but he's never been able to.

There just aren't enough colors in that little pouch of broken charcoal pencils to do it.


	3. A Rain to Wash the World Clean

**Title**: A Rain to Wash the World Clean  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Character**: Squall (hints of SeiferxSquall, SquallxRinoa)  
**Summary**: Sometimes, you just need to stand outside in the rain.  
**Notes**: When Jet said "it's a rain to wash the world clean" at the end of the Cowboy Bebop movie, it stuck with me.

* * *

It's raining again, harder this time than the last. The water trails down, pouring heaven's tears in a constant waterfall from the stormy, blue-gray skies, trickling over stone and brick and metal, washing the world clean. Puddles linger, pool before him, all around him like an ocean, and he watches as one splashes up around the pants of some woman walking past the window. Her hair is pulled back, tied up, and an umbrella is clutched, tight, in both hands, warding off the icy rain and the blasting wind. He watches her go, watches the water droplets from the mirror surface she had shattered dance up through the air and land in perfect silence on the already wet concrete, but he doesn't give it that much thought.

It rains here often – more so than he had ever remembered it to.

It doesn't bother him, really. He rather enjoys the soothing wash, the shower draining down from the skies to cling to his skin, run through his hair and drag dark-auburn-almost-black strands down before his storm-cloud eyes. The chill is just enough to numb his already too-pale flesh, just enough to wash back the feeling stabbing at the underside of his skin, and he leans, heavy, against the brick wall of some café in some corner of the street, letting the rain fall, letting the wind blow.

The rain is soothing. It's a constant pour, always there, and it's kind yet harsh and gentle yet fierce, never really staying as one or the other. He likes that, more than anything else. The double-edged sword, so to speak – one day it's a light, spring shower, the sun sparkling through the crystal drops and lighting up the sky in a broken glass explosion of rainbows, and the next it's a storm, cleansing the earth, acid rain erosion pouring over concrete and digging nature's venom into the stone that man has constructed.

He blinks, brushes his bangs back with chill-filled fingertips, but he doesn't make a move to seek shelter. The weather is too nice for that – a good, clean downpour, harsh enough to soak through his too stiff and too official tailored shirt, cold enough to chill down into his baggy tan slacks, soaking into his socks and dark, polished shoes.

He tilts his head back, closes his eyes. The world is just this feeling, just this cleansing rain, and there's no business, and no Garden, and no fathers who don't understand and no trials to attend for ex-lovers or divorces to plan for ex-wives, and, most of all, there's no Commander.

There's just this little boy, standing back at the edge of the orphanage, one hand clutched around his shirt hem and the other held up to his own downpour, scrubbing away, letting the rain wash the world clean.


	4. A Few Missed Calls

**Title**: A Few Missed Calls  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Pairing**: Implied SeiferxSquall  
**Summary**: Squall learns that he should start checking his answering machine a little more often than he does.  
**Notes**: Faintly based off of the song "I Don't Know What I Can Save You From" by Kings of Convenience. I'm a little dissappointed with this one, because it feels rushed.

* * *

It wasn't unusual for him to have a message glaring up at him once he returned from training, regardless of how late it was. 

Actually, it happened almost all the time, and he had grown quite used to the idea of sitting back down at his desk to hear the voice of his father or Quistis pouring over the phone, issuing some information on a current SeeD mission, in the case of Quistis, or just wanting to talk to him, as his father normally insisted upon doing.

So it was no surprise when he sat down to see that familiar little light on the machine winking up at him, glaring red in his otherwise monochrome room. A gentle sigh worked from ruby lips as he pressed the cold, plastic button, knowing all too well that whatever it was, it obviously couldn't wait until morning, and he braced himself for the news that would more than likely only ensure that he wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight.

As prepared as he thought he was, he definitely wasn't expecting it to be a thick male's voice, and gray blue eyes shot wide open, despite his fatigue. The painstakingly familiar, velvety rhythm leapt from the speaker to greet him and ensnare him before he could even make out the words that it was whispering.

_" Hey."_

There was a pause, and Squall found himself leaning just that little bit closer to the answering machine, staring at the thing as if it were going to break in a matter of seconds and cut off that voice from him for good. That voice...

"_Shit. I wish I were good at these kinds of things… I've never really tried before… Been a while since we've last talked, huh? Five years…"_

The voice trailed off, and the sound of shuffling feet against carpeting was heard in the background, as if the owner of the voice had taken to pacing about the room in nervousness at the aspect of speaking once again.

Squall would have sympathized with him were it not for the numbing buzz that was drilling into his mind at the current moment and scattering his thoughts like shards of a broken ice.

"_Dammit. Shoulda figured that you wouldn't be around at this time of night (what the fuck am I thinking?) but I wanted to call anyway. 'Just wanted to talk or something, I don't know…"_

There was a heavy sigh into the phone, and Squall could have sworn that he felt the tension in the room inch up just a little bit.

"_Ah shit. I guess I've just… decided that traveling around is getting old, and I wanted to settle down again. 'Guess I kinda miss your stiff ass."_

Another pause, and the air was heavier than Squall had remembered, and he suddenly really, _really_ wanted to just turn off that stupid machine and pretend that nothing had ever happened, wanted to go back to pretending that there was nothing left out there.

"… _A lot."_

It took Squall a moment, just a brief time where everything seemed to come to a screeching halt, for him to register what exactly had been said and what the context of that simple phrase was. He blinked, dumbfounded, digging for some explanation and then blinked again when he was unable to find one; he leaned forward, almost as if trying to draw that answer from the inside of the machine, staring at it as if it were foreign and new and not something that he had become so accustomed to seeing.

"S_o I'm coming back."_

The words ended with the click of the phone on the opposite end, the beep of his answering machine, and the flickering image of a time and date flashing over the screen that caused his breath to catch in his throat almost painfully.

"Ya know… You really should check your answering machine a little more often."


	5. Wrinkled

**Title**: Wrinkled  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Character**: Seifer (implied SeiferxSquall, if you look hard enough)  
**Summary**: He takes comfort in the smallest things, and sometimes, that's all he needs.  
**Notes**: Written for the theme of "unsent letters" at the Fated Children LiveJournal community.

* * *

He has a secret. He'd never tell anyone about it, because it'd be 'too damned embarrassing' to let someone know that he'd ever think of such a thing, but he takes comfort in that secret, every time he takes it out again to hold it and look at it.

It's a simple secret, really. There's this little pile of bound letters, tucked away into the far back of his nightstand drawer. Each one is folded into a perfectly cleaned, crisp, white envelop, and the only thing that mars that surface is the slightly messy – although it's the best he could muster – handwriting that prints out the individual names of five very important people and the addresses where they reside.

There's one to Quistis – he wrote hers first, because he felt that she needed the biggest apology for being the one to deal with him the most – and he even wrote one to Chickenwuss – just to let him know that he still thinks of him as Chicken, of course.

There's one to Selphie and Irvine, telling them that he's sorry he couldn't be there for the 'big day' all that time ago, each letter separate and including something small and important that only the other would understand.

And then there's the last one, a little more wrinkled than the others from frustration and from being shoved on the very bottom of the pile, because the best had to be saved for last. He hated writing that letter, as important as it was, because no matter how hard he tried, the words just wouldn't seem to come to him. So it took him at least three different tries to get the words down, but finally he found the expressions he was looking for, and that letter has been sitting there, mocking him more than the other ones with just the simple print on the front of it spelling out that damned man's name.

He's probably never going to send those letters. Somehow, that's comforting to him. It's good enough that he wrote them, that he made those silent confessions down on paper and finally got them out of his head so he could continue on living a normal life (as normal as he could ever have).

It's comfort enough to just hold them, sometimes.

So that's what he's doing now, sprawled out over the starched sheets of his too small apartment, some of the letters scattered around him, some resting on his stomach, and one particular envelop, a little more wrinkled than the rest, clutched between his fingers.


	6. Twilight Rituals

**Title**: Twilight Rituals  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Pairing**: SeiferxSquall  
**Summary**: They've been doing this for as long as either of them can remember.  
**Notes**: This was previously posted as a separate fic, but because it fits under the drabble limit (one thousand words, in my world), I'm taking it down and moving it here.

* * *

They had been doing this for as long as he could remember.

Now that Seifer thought about it, it had to have started when they were still in the orphanage; when they had picked up this ritual of sitting, back to back, their hands resting oh so gently on each other's – in just a friendly companionship, of course – and their faces turned up toward the dark twilight of the fading day and the coming of night, captivated with each other and with their surroundings.

It was his favorite time to just sit and _watch_. The crimson tinted horizon, fading away over the sea that surrounded Balamb and the land that he could faintly see stretching far into the distance, sent a glittering rain of dim light over them both that lit his face and hair in a gentle rosy hue (and it gave a certain fire behind Squall's eyes that he loved to sit and watch for hours, although he'd never say that out loud). A gentle sigh worked from his lips as he tossed his head back, his hair falling in gentle, golden fringe around his face, brushing just barely over the scar cut down the center of his face.

Under their recent circumstances, he normally wasn't able to enjoy this luxury; he was either too busy, or too stubborn, or the time just wasn't _right_ like it was now. There was a specific _sensation _that needed to heavy in the air and around them – a feeling that he couldn't quite name but he could recognize as _right _just by walking outside and catching a brief glimpse of the sun reflecting in pale ice.

Or Squall wouldn't have been able to be there (Commanders rarely ever get to leave their position, after all). And it wasn't _right _to sit there alone without that companionship at his back and the gentle touch of calloused and familiar flesh against his.

So he was savoring every moment of this rare occasion by leaning heavily against Squall's warm back and resting his hand lightly against the slender, pale fingers spreading out over the grass beneath them and tangling into the emerald strands with a detached sense of enthrallment. It was good to be back out here, and he let a lazy smile cross his lips as he sighed deeply, breathing in the fresh twilight air with a huff of breath and letting the stress of daylight and life wash out of him.

Maybe that's why he liked this time of day; because everything was fresh and new, and he could just forget about the day and forget about ever having fought in the war and let himself rest in peace for a little, fleeting while.

It was their ritual together – this cleansing of themselves and their daily lives that they shared, where they would sit and let everything get forced away from their thoughts for the moment. Time had passed, and war had torn them apart to drop them on separate sides, and this ritual had been shoved, forgotten, to the backs of their minds.

But it had come back as Seifer had come back, faithful as always, as if it – and he – had never really left in the first place.

And he was thankful for that subtle similarity to their past lives and the things that they had once known.

He moved his head back just a little bit more, brushing the base of his head against soft chestnut, and letting his eyes lock onto the sky. _Happy you could find the time to come. _There was a silence that followed – a companionable, relaxed moment where Squall leaned just a little bit more against his spine and his fingers curled just a hint more into the grass and against Seifer's rough hand.

Squall gave a swift nod, their heads brushing together delicately. _I wanted to._

They remained in silence until the sun completely vanished, soaking in each other's presence and the emotion, forgiveness, and feeling that their actions – the gentle flicker of movement of Seifer's fingers or the faint tilt of Squall's head to one side – could convey so much better than words.

Squall was the first to break that silence.

"It's… nice." He hesitated, digging for what to say after so long of keeping it locked away in ice, as if he was unfamiliar with the idea of using spoken words instead of just actions to get his point through. "After so long. I've… missed it."

_I've missed us._

"Yeah…" It was his turn to pause, "been a long time since we were last here, huh?" He turned just a little bit to the side, giving himself enough room to pull that lithe hand into his and to lace their fingers together in a tight bind.

A bind between them that was better unspoken and better off felt rather than openly announce.

_Just us._

_Yeah._

_And there are no more uncertainties, and no more fighting, and all there's just this and us, sittin' here like we used to, and we don't have anything to worry about anymore. And there's –_

And there's a kiss to seal it all away and make it final


	7. Once More With Feeling

**Title**: Once More With Feeling  
**Rating**: PG/T  
**Pairing**: SeiferxSquall  
**Summary**: He wants to feel again, and only the fire can melt the ice to make it work.  
**Notes**: As with _Twilight Rituals, _I'm moving this into the drabble collection as well, and taking it down as a separate fic.  
**Other Notes**: I have a strange obsession with the 'fire and ice' theme.

* * *

_"I want to feel."_

He hasn't felt anything worthwhile for so, so long. He's felt emptiness, he's felt abandonment, he's felt pain and horror and the rush of battle, but that's not what he wants.

_"Everything is just so _cold _inside of me."_

It's the cold that bothers him more than anything else.

The cold wasn't always there. There was a time, when he was young, that he could enjoy the little things of life, such as the dancing sunset or the gorgeous sky. There was a time when he could feel things like joy and the thrill of lifeand not some artificial, cold, metal mask.

There was a time when he'd allowed himself to feel.

But after she left him, broke his heart into pieces, he stopped letting himself feel humanHe'd locked it all away, just because it hurt a little too much for him to take, and he couldn't stand that pain.

It was the best plan. Seal it up into a tiny silver box in the back of his heart, a place where no one can go and no one can find the key to.

That box had remained shut for the longest time. He had been an expert at keeping it frozen over, making it grow, making it become more and more beautiful, building up the gleaming crystal and making it so taunting and untouchable in the distance. He was the Ice Prince and Shiva's Lover; he was the blizzard given flesh and was pure, emotionless ice, and that was how he liked it.

Until he had tasted the fire, molten hot on his tongue and laced thick with promises and whispers that he knew were too good to be true, but were so tempting that he let himself fall with them, in a bout of mindless desperation.

_"I want to feel something, anything_._"_

It had been daring and rushed, full of too much emotion and too much adrenaline, and it had tasted like ash and blood wrapped into the reckless crush of heated bodies. Now that he looks back, it was probably too quick for a first, too rough and too thoughtless, and no meaning had been put behind it. It had ended in more cold than there had been before when the fire had pulled away and left him bare and alone.

But he kept coming back, kept letting the blaze drag him away and into the sunlight so he could melt before them all.

At first, it had only happened occasionally. Just once every other month or so, whenever the cold built up again and he needed to feel the fire hot and thick in his body, needed to have it tame the ice just a little bit and let him breath again.

_"Just not this."_

It was only a matter of time before it changed. Months dwindled down into weeks, and eventually even that wasn't soon enough, and it became a nightly ritual, sometimes gentle, sometimes so rough he'd be so full of feeling the next day he'd hide away from it all, from the fear of those foreign emotions that would linger in his mind and heart. Other times they would just lie down and cling to one another, as if life was slowly tearing them apart, letting the heat soak through from warm skin to almost too cool, heating him inside and out.

He's tried staying away, but it never works out.

The fire calls him back, and he's sprawled out once more, naked and vulnerable and revealed as the frost melts away, his face and body burning hot to a point where it feels like his flesh is on fire and he's become so feverish that he says things he _knows_ can't be true, because that just isn't like him.

"_I want the chill to be gone."_

But he loves every moment of it. He hates himself because he loves it, because in these times, when the fire is overpowering and he can't think straight and his breath is coming in irregular, broken gasps, he can finally _feel _everything around him. The box shatters open and the contents pour out, drip down over him and along pallid marble, running in clear, smooth trails down his face, neck, and chest, dazzling with sweat and so tantalizingly beautiful in the muted lighting.

"I can do that."

And the fire is there to dry up the melted pieces of the box and make it better again, even if it hurts to face the failure and the emptiness, hurts so much that he cries out sometimes, without even knowing it. But the fire envelops him, soothes him, wraps around him and swallows him whole and presses back those yells with gentle kisses, and he knows that here, within the comforting blaze, he can simply feel _human_ again.


	8. Stains

**Title**: Stains  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Character**: Seifer  
**Summary**: A simple autobiography of his life.  
**Notes**: Done for the themes of "blood" and "gunpowder" over at the Fated Children LiveJournal community. I think this is the first one that is actually around drabble length - only 157 words (a typical drabble is only one-hundred words, according to the dictionary definition, but I'm bending the rules a little with these drabbles).

* * *

There's a specific air to him that just sticks out and clings to you even though you don't know who he is, when you pass him by in the crowded streets of some nameless city. It's hard to put your finger on it, what that atmosphere is, but its striking, and you keep it with you as he walks away into the crowd and vanishes from view.

He smells like an overpowering, metallic blend of blood and gunpowder, and although he'll tell you that he doesn't notice it, it's obvious that he does. But he makes no effort to try to get rid of it, because it's who he is and it's all of his past rolled into one simple sensation, something that he knows will never change and will be free of the lies that wordy explanations contain.

He says that it's the only autobiography of his life that he'll ever need.


	9. Going Home

**Title**: Going Home  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Character**: Seifer  
**Summary**: Seifer finally makes up his mind about a few rather important matters.  
**Notes**: For the themes "home" and "wanderlust" in the Fated Children LiveJournal community. This is actually a companion piece to a longer chapter fic that is currently in the process of being finished, though it's possible to read it alone.

* * *

He honestly has no idea what he's doing here.

One minute he was back in Timber, sitting in the hotel room with his hands folded in his lap and his face focused on that damned wooden flooring, watching it as if it had all the answers to his questions, and the next, he's walking around the room like a madman, packing up what little belongings he has and shoving them away into that old duffle bag that Raijin gave him all those years back. He hadn't even realized he was doing it until he was standing in front of the main desk, his hand sliding across the furnished surface of the counter and handing over the room key as he checked out a good three days earlier than he had originally planned, and he was walking out of the minute hotel and down the cobblestone streets toward the train station.

And that's where he's at now, viridian eyes staring up at the signs that are hanging a little crooked on the old wooden walls, scanning for those few words that he knows by heart before he finally spots them, and he grins a little, regardless of how utterly ridiculous this entire situation is.

With his better judgment – which happens to be trying to tell him to stop before he gets himself in too deep – shoved aside and bottled up for the time being, he's walking across the platform with a ticket in hand sooner than he can blink. He glances down at the little piece of cardboard, confused at his own actions, and he flips it over in his palm, examining the lettering on the slightly rough surface with a pointed glare and a frown.

A one-way trip back to Balamb, scheduled to leave in the next twenty minutes.

He falls down into one of the cold, metal waiting chairs with a heavy thud, and he stares at that tiny little slip as if it's the most interesting, yet horrifying, thing in the world.

What the hell is he doing here? After four years of devoting his life to traveling, to wandering from city to city and picking up odd jobs here and there, why is he finally heading back_home, _of all places?

He was going back to the place he had tried to avoid?

Now that he looks at that ticket and reads those little black-print words over and over again, he realizes that maybe, just _maybe_, going back isn't such a bad idea after all.


	10. Lessons Well Learned

**Title**: Lessons Well Learned  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Characters**: Seifer, Squall, slight hints of SeiferxSquall if you squint  
**Summary**: Boys will be boys, and lessons will be learned.  
**Notes**: For the themes "young" and "precious memories" at the Fated Children LiveJournal community. Just because I think that the scars on their faces aren't the only scars that they've ever given each other. (Yes, I did BS ages for the sake of making things work out.)

* * *

The scar on his face wasn't the first scar that Squall ever gave him.

It's only a thin line, a tiny blemish on his otherwise marble-smooth skin, and he oftentimes forgets that it's even there.

It was a child's mistake, an error of two boys growing up too fast for their own good and seeing the world through crystal clear glass and a golden frame of glory, where everyone grew up to be a hero, where nothing ever went wrong. They hadn't learned the steps right just yet, and they hadn't had enough practice.

Seifer was fourteen-years-old when he held his first gunblade, fifteen when he fought his first human opponent and received that three-inch-wide scar, the one that runs from the base of his ribcage – Kadowaki said they were lucky that it didn't hit his ribs, because that could have broke a bone – to an inch above his naval, from one of his peers. They didn't know what they were doing, they weren't prepared for it, and they were stupid to even try, but now that he looks back on it, he's glad that they did it.

They were amateurs, barely even accustomed to the weight of a _real _blade in their palms and hardly even able to lift the beginner level weapon high enough to call it a battle, but he had insisted that they try out the new weaponry they had been issued only a week before, and Squall had agreed without hesitation. They had marched outside in the dead of night, their favorite time to fight, and had slipped away, unnoticed, to that little place out on the rocks, tucked away in the velveteen bindings of night and illuminated by the moonlight spilling down over the dark brown stone.

It had been exhilarating. The best thing they had ever done. They learned easily, swiftly, and things had been perfect. They had been true rivals and true knights now, and the distant memories of two boys out on the beach at an equal time of night flickered through their minds to fuel their swinging blades and twisting bodies.

He had never wanted it to end.

The injury had been his fault. He had let his mind wander, let his guard down for that brief moment, and he had been taken by surprise by the swing of a blade that wasn't aimed exactly as it should have been, and the next thing he knew, he was on his back, eyes wide, staring up at the stars with a stinging burn spreading in a spider web network through his abdomen.

The rest is blurry. He remembers hearing Squall drop his weapon, hearing a rush of noise as the other boy muttered countless words of worry and apology, but he was too fixated on the sight of his blood on Squall's hands to really care that much about what the smaller boy might have been telling him. He remembers hearing Squall tell him that he shouldn't worry, that he'll be back as soon as he could and that he'll bring help, and, had it not been for the fact that he had been too delirious from pain and surprise, he would have swore that there had been tears of worry in Squall's eyes, and that scared him more than the fact that his head was starting to spin and he was getting nausea at the sight of the blood.

He doesn't know what happened after that. Doctor Kadowaki told him, the next morning, that he had passed out from blood loss and exhaustion, but he doesn't remember ever doing that, so he's not too sure if it's true.

He likes to think that that scar is a reminder, a lesson, and he traces it with the delicate swipe of a finger when he's lost in thoughts of the past.


	11. Over the Horizon

**Title**: Over the Horizon  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Pairing**: SeiferxSquall  
**Summary**: They won't turn around to face either other, because that just won't do.  
**Notes**: This is dedicated to all of the lovely kids over at the SeiferxSquall LJ community that I moderate, Furere Aliqua. I don't really like the ending of this one, but hey, I'm content for the day.

* * *

They're standing side by side, shoulders brushing, but neither of them are looking at each other, and instead their eyes are focused on two different points out over the horizon, almost as if they didn't want to be there, to be standing next to each other.

Anyone who would have been walking by would have taken it that way. Two rivals forced to compromise and stand together on that little balcony overlooking the bustling streets of Deling city beneath, back-to-back, too stubborn to make eye contact.

But that's not the case.

"You've been standing out here for hours."

He doesn't turn to face the younger man when he speaks, but instead brushes his shoulder against his, letting him know that he wants a response. Squall doesn't turn to face him, but doesn't back away from the connection, either, and Seifer's glad about, because that's a sign that they've made it over the ignoring stage of this companionship.

If it could be called a companionship, that is. Seifer prefers to say that it's something more than that, but Squall would disagree with him, announcing that it's merely a friendship, at best.

Neither of them will call it what it is out loud, though, because that just wouldn't do. Because if they did, everyone would _know, _and that would be too much for either of their comfort, so they won't say it just yet.

"I was thinking." Squall's voice is quiet, wrapped in on itself like it always is, and thick with concentration and disuse from the time that he's been spending watching the cars buzz by along the stone streets below.

Seifer chuckles, leans closer to the railing and dips his hand over it, just to feel the cool breeze on his fingertips and overheated palm. He outlines a small basket of newspapers below them with the swirl of a finger, and for a moment, he squints down at the faint print, in some childish effort to read what's written there, but he comes out empty-handed.

He turns back to the point over the buildings that he had been watching before, but he keeps his back to Squall, even as he speaks.

"No surprise there, Princess. It's about all you ever do – you're gonna go gray doing that, you know."

Squall's shoulder twitches against his, and he can tell that the brunette is laughing. It takes all of his self-control to keep himself from turning around on the spot and drawing Squall into his arms and kissing him, kissing that smile that he knows is faint on the icy lips, and he grins and runs his hands over the metal railing that's supporting his weight to keep his hands busy. Turning around now would ruin it, and then people would know, and they'd be forced to say it out loud. And that can't happen yet.

"Did you come out here just to lecture me?" There's no malice in his words, like there would have been a long time ago, before things changed and morphed into this mockery of a friendship with a pinch of that something more tossed in. Again that maddening laugh shakes his shoulders, and this time, Seifer can swear that he can hear it drifting over the cool air and to his ears, and his fingers twitch. But he won't turn around, because that just won't do.

"Nah." He leans back, presses his body closer to Squall's, but he still doesn't face him. "Just wanted to keep you company, that's all."

There's a pause that follows his words, and a for a moment, he dreads that he's said something wrong, that being out here just for that wasn't quite the answer that Squall had been searching for.

Squall breaks the silent pact between them first, and turns those few inches to the side, just so Seifer can see dark blue eyes out of the corner of his own and catch the flicker of movement as the ex-Commander moves in close enough that Seifer can feel his chest rising and falling against his back. Slender arms that are cooled from the chill of the wind blowing between the brick buildings (Seifer wonders what Squall has against jackets all of the sudden, and he makes a note to bring one out next time) wrap around his broad chest, and he laughs a little at the fact that the hands don't quite overlap, even though he has no idea what Leonhart is thinking by doing this.

He's beginning to wonder if the injury that gave him leave from Garden had damaged more than his left leg.

"Stop talking, and I'll think about it."


	12. Kissing Lessons

**Title**: Kissing Lessons  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Pairing**: SeiferxSquall  
**Summary**: Squall isn't a romantic person.  
**Notes**: Seifer POV. This is the shortest one so far, I think. xD

* * *

Squall isn't exactly what you'd call a 'hopeless romantic.'

He's never bothered to give it a try. Says it's too much hard work that he doesn't want to put in, and it's too trivial to even want to practice being 'romantic' or 'charming' in the least bit. Says there's no use for it in life, that there's no need to know how to kiss right, how to flatter someone, or how to flirt to get your way.

'Don't really know what he's talking about, 'cause it's done me plenty of good over time, and he knows it. But that's just him. And that's just me. And I'm not him – and I sure as hell don't wanna be, if it means shoving a stick up my ass that far – and he's not me – and I'm pretty sure he feels about the same way about that stick bit.

But that doesn't mean I won't try to teach him.

Even if that means givin' him those private kissing lessons that he'd die if I told anyone about.


	13. Guessing Games

**Title**: Guessing Games  
**Rating**: G  
**Pairing**: SeiferxSquall  
**Summary**: Squall hates playing guessing games.  
**Notes**: All dialogue (just for fun), fluff. Dedicated to Yuumoya.

* * *

"Two guesses." 

"I hate playing these kinds of games – why can't you just tell me?"

"Because that takes all of the fun out of it. Now guess."

"But—"

"No 'but.' Come on, it's really not that hard. You were the one who said I was obvious when it came to this kind of thing."

"That doesn't mean I actually want to play along."

"You're going to. Now guess."

"… I give up. Tell me."

"You can't give up before you even try!"

"I just did."

"You're a real pain in the ass, you know that? A regular bastard."

"I learned it from you."

"Yeah, and I taught you well."

"Regret it?"

"Nah, not really. Lets me know I've been doing my job."

"Ah, I see."

"What? Can't I be proud that I've actually managed to melt you a little bit?"

"Whatever."

"You're slipping again."

"And this matters to you because?"

"Because I thought I was actually gettin' somewhere, and then you turn around and prove that I'm not. Thanks a lot."

"You're welcome."

"Regular stiff, that's what you are. Don't know how to _live._"

"And I'm supposed to assume that you do?"

"Of course! Haven't you been paying attention at all recently?"

"Was I supposed to?"

"I think I _have _rubbed off on you. Maybe I should stop hanging around so much."

"…"

"What?"

"…"

"Are you actually taking me seriously? If I left, then you'd turn back into that broody dark self of yours, and then what will everyone do? You'd be a mess. I need to stick around to prevent that from happening."

"Seifer, you still haven't told me what I'm supposed to be guessing."

"… Oh, yeah. Well, that's because you haven't guessed yet. So guess."

"_Seifer._"

"Fine, fine. Still ain't any fun – maybe I need to teach you more?"

"Seifer, just tell me already."

"Ah, fine, fine. But your gonna owe me for not playing along, and I'm not gonna let you sleep tonight because of it."

"Whatever."

_A gentle whisper in your ear._

"_Love you."_


	14. Believing

**Title: **Believing  
**Rating: **G  
**Pairing: **SeiferxSquall  
**Summary:** Some things are just hard to believe, unless you experience them once.  
**Notes**: I like short drabbles. :D

**

* * *

**

Despite his arrogance, ego, and bull-stubborn, rude streak, Seifer can be quite the gentleman, when he tries hard enough. It's hard to imagine – Squall wouldn't believe it if he hadn't witnessed it first hand – but, when he's out of the spotlight and his "reputation" doesn't matter any more, he whispers gentle, charming words into Squall's ear, holds him close and safe in his arms as they curl up in the corner of Squall's couch. The rivalry from before doesn't matter, and he kisses Squall with a sense of admiration that Squall never expected existed.

Not that he minds, of course.


	15. Treasures

**Title**: Treasures  
**Rating**: G  
**Pairing**: SeiferxSquall  
**Summary**: Personal treasures are more important than anything else.  
**Notes**: Squall would be touch-starved, and everyone knows it.

* * *

Squall hates to admit it, but Seifer knows how touch-starved he really is. He's cold as ice and stubborn as hell, but when things are just right, when they are so disjointed from reality that masks don't exist any more, he melts a little. He curls into Seifer's arms when they lie together, exposed and twisted in the sheets of Seier's bed, the high of that night reducing to a pleasant fatigue. He desperately clings to the warmth of Seifer's chest, and they sleep like that, a slight, lopsided grin on Squall's lips.

Seifer treasures it, more than anything else.


	16. A Promise is a Promise

**Title**: A Promise is a Promise  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Character**: Seifer (orphanage crew mentioned)  
**Summary**: Seifer muses on a promise they made as children.  
**Notes**: I should be slapped, because this is, by no means, a drabble. But it's under one thousand words,so I'm shoving it here, because I am lazy. For the themes 'left alone' and 'letters' at the Fated Children LiveJournal community.

* * *

Seifer can't really remember it very well, but it's the only memory he has of when they were children, and he cherishes it like it was his greatest treasure.

When they were in the orphanage, he remembers making a promise. He remembers sitting out on the beach in the middle of the night, lost little children huddled close together because they were the only things each other had left; he remembers a bonfire that he lit himself – the others were too afraid of matches to touch them – and he remembers someone bringing up their futures, the topic they hated to mention and avoided as if it were some kind of death omen to mention it.

He remembers one of them – a pity he can't remember who did what, during this whole thing – bringing up adoption. Remembers saying that he wouldn't mind having a family, but only if the others could, too. Remembers them all leaning in close, arms touching, breaths creating a mingled fog between their faces, and he remembers them putting their hands out in front of each other, smiles bright on everyone's faces. Zell wasn't crying, Selphie wasn't singing, Quistis wasn't laughing, Irvine wasn't playing cowboys and Indians and Squall wasn't moving away – it was the one thing they had ever agreed on, the one thing they had ever promised each other.

That no one would be left behind. No one would be forgotten.

Two weeks later, Zell was adopted. Quistis followed shortly after, and soon it was just him and Squall left, standing side by side, watching as Irvine waved at them from the back seat of Matron's car with tears on his cheeks and that little hat of his tucked to his chest. Neither of them were crying outside, but he knew even Squall was sobbing on the inside, by the dark cloud that had filtered over his vision and the tense stance he had taken in the doorway.

He remembers looping an arm around the brunette's shoulders, whispering under his breath that everything will be alright, and thinking that he'd make sure to keep his word even if it meant bending over backward to do it. That was the last time they had touched like that: as friends and equals.

A few months after that, they were shipped off to Garden. He was a year behind the set curriculum, and old man Cid wasn't too happy about that at all, but a promise was a promise – he had stayed at the orphanage with Squall until Squall was of age as well, intent to not leave him behind, as the others had (as Big Sis had).

When they got there, the promise was forgotten. More things were shoved into their heads, and they let it slip away into a loose thread at the back of their minds, constantly there but never addressed. (Honesty, he wasn't sure why they never thought about it or brought it up – a part of him figured they were both just too busy or too afraid to want to deal with the past, because things had changed now, and that was how it was going to be from now on.)

Squall went from being his best friend to his greatest rival; Quistis became an instructor, someone else to tie him down with rules and regulations and for him to fight against and argue with; Zell stayed the same (he was thankful for that), but he didn't have time to care, didn't want to think about it.

He made new friends. The promise was hardly there at all, now, but that didn't stop it from existing, and he thinks that that's the reason they were always so drawn to each other, so compelled to fight and argue and tease and threaten. Lingering phantom memories from their childhood.

Soon the War came. And they were split, torn apart – he was shoved away, and he joined the other side, blinded by power and greed and the idea of fame that had been implanted into his head by soft words and gentle touches.

And they overpowered him, just like he knew they would, just like they overpowered Her in the end and set things 'right' again. And, this time, he was the one who was going to be left behind, left staring at their backs as they walk away and watch as the fame and glory is showered down upon them. He was the one who was going to be abandoned to wallow in his own defeat and his own faults, and the promise, hell, half of them didn't even remember the promise any more, did they? Maybe he was the only one who had ever cared about it in the first place, hopeless dreamer that he was – maybe he was the only one who had meant it when he had poured his very being into that promise and the touch of their hands and the words that had passed between them that night.

He was wrong, in the end. He hates admitting he's wrong, but he'll be the first to say that he had them pegged all wrong, and he still feels horrible for it, for making that jab at them when he should have known better.

They called him back. He received the invite not long after he had been left alone in the form of a crisp white letter, scribbled in that neat little cursive handwriting of Squall's, signed by the entire group. It was short, simple, and to the point, but it was all he needed to know that he was still welcomed, and that no one had been left alone in the end, after all:

_A promise is a promise._


	17. Hero

**Title**: Hero  
**Rating**: K+  
**Character**: Seifer  
**Summary**: Seifer is looking for something.  
**Notes**: For the themes 'struggle within' and 'dreams' at the Fated Children LiveJournal community.

* * *

I feel like I'm looking for something. I don't know what I'm looking for, and I don't know where to start looking for whatever-the-hell it is, but I just know that I'm looking for it, in everything I do and everything I say and everywhere I go. I feel like what I do leads me toward it, pushes me further away at the same time, forces me into a corner and leaves me staring, wide-eyed and terrified, at this big black nothingness. And I know that in that big black nothingness, there's that thing that I'm looking for, but I'm too damned scared and too damned ignorant to reach in and take it out for myself. So I end up staring at it and staring at it, all the while knowing that there's something in there for me but not knowing how I'm supposed to go about getting it out, and in the end, I just turn tail and bolt out of there, run away like a scared dog and put as much distance between that black nothingness and me as I can. I feel like I'm always running away from something, always running toward something, and I know that the something I'm running from is the something I'm running toward, but I can't bring myself to face it, and it just sits back there, thick and dark and menacing and _promising, _chasing after me, hot on my heels, and I'm chasing after it, caught in the dust.

Everything I do and say digs me deeper into this hole that I've set up for myself. I already have a head-start-running-jump-_leap_ into the hole, and it's laughing at me, waiting to eat me up when I go in.

I don't know what I want to do.

I don't belong here. This place just isn't for me any more – it kicked me out a long time ago, when it found out that I didn't agree and that there were some things that couldn't be shoved deep into my head, that I wasn't going to listen to every single bullshit explanation and word and lie that they wanted to feed me. I don't know where I belong other than here, though – that's the sad part to it. I want to go some place far away from here, by myself, drop off the rest of the world behind and just charge on forward to make some kind of living for myself, because I want them all to know who I am, to hear my name and to say "hey, have you heard about how-" and be able to recite all they know about me with fear and admiration and love laced in their voices and painted on their faces.

I want to see the world laid out for me better than any map ever could lay it out. I want to write my own map. I want to make my own rules. See my own sights. Live my own life. Build my own monuments and lie out my own truths and find my own 'meaning to life.'

I want to be an explorer. I want to be an inventor, a renovator; a poet and a writer and a musician and a lover and a dreamer. A fighter.

A warrior.

A hero.


	18. Edge

**Title**: Edge  
**Rating**: K  
**Pairing**: Seifer/Squall  
**Summary**: They do it for a reason.  
**Notes**: Request fic for brightspark (twilightsrain).

* * *

It's in these moments when he feels alive. The blood is rushing through him, warm and thick; his skin is flushed with that fiery passion that's been instilled in him; the mask has fallen away and crumbled to the ground. He's torn open and spread apart, stretched so thin he thinks he'll snap.

He loves that daring edge to life, the threat of plummeting over the boundaries and tumbling down, swallowed up in all of the emotion and the feeling.

Seifer sneers (he knows he can light a fire under little Squallyboy's ass).

He grins right back: challenging, welcoming, _inviting_.


	19. Dancing

**Title**: Dancing  
**Rating**: T  
**Pairing**: Seifer/Squall  
**Summary**: It's a secret between them.

* * *

It's a secret between them, a twisted sort of companionship that links them together. They never speak of it, because that might just ruin it all, bring it crashing down on their heads, smothering them, breaking them.

So not once do the talk about it.

They act like it never happens. They fight like the rivals they are by day, all stoic, colder-than-Shiva ice and untamed, hellfire-hot flames, bouncing off of each other, tearing each other apart.

At night, they're still fighting, but the weapons have changed, the rules have been bent and broken and rebuilt into a mockery of a relationship. Seifer pries and pushes and pulls him apart, and Squall writhes and pleads and pushes right back, savoring it, basking in it, all the while melting under the hellfire-hot heat, crumbling, exposed.

It's a dangerous kind of dance that only they know the routine for, and one day, it might just drag them down, break them both.

But they wouldn't want to go down any other way.


	20. Duels

**Title**: Duels  
**Rating**: K  
**Pairing**: Seifer/Squall  
**Summary**: Seifer's opinion of their first kiss.

* * *

Seifer maintains that their first kiss had been completely his doing, and he gloats about it, prides that he had been the first to get through to the Ice Prince. A dueling match turned into something more, so much more, arms around his neck, hands on Squall's hips, pretty brunette pinned between him and the cold metal Training Center wall. Words whispered under their breaths, moving too fast, too much, all at once, but neither of them caring, because that's just the way things are. 

He has the perfect image in his mind, and nothing is going to change that.


	21. Earth Shattering

**Title**: Earth-Shattering  
**Rating**: K  
**Pairing**: Seifer/Squall  
**Summary**: Squall begs to differ. Companion to "Duels."

* * *

Squall has a completely different opinion of their "earth-shattering" first kiss, albeit a subtler one. Two little boys, hunched over on the beach, scared and nervous and hopeful, apocalypse breathing down their necks, arms linked together at their sides, gentle blonde taking his hands in his and kissing a reassuring little promise to his brow. Their world feels like it's crumbling, because tomorrow they'll be torn apart, separated by an ocean and people they don't even know holding them back. 

He doesn't have the heart to ruin Seifer's pride, although he does like dropping little reminders every now and again.


	22. Mirror Image

**Title**: Mirror Image  
**Rating**: K  
**Pairing**: Seifer/Squall  
**Summary**: Seifer reflects on what it's like to watch Squall.

* * *

Looking into Squall's eyes is like looking into a broken, backward mirror. Everything he could ever want to be, all of his dreams of recognition, of fame and glory and beauty, are laid out before him, taunting him, showing him what he wants but can't obtain on his own. It's intoxicating, hypnotizing, when he just lets himself drown in clouds and ice and shambles and dreams that neither of them ever had come true.

It's the reflection of what he has always wanted to be being tossed back at him, given to the wrong person for the wrong reasons, unwanted.


	23. Anchor

**Title**: Anchor  
**Rating**: K  
**Pairing**: Seifer/Squall  
**Summary**: Squall reflects on Seifer. Companion to Mirror Images.

* * *

Watching Seifer watch him, all gleaming adoration and want and broken-emerald gaze, is like being stripped out of his walls, bare and exposed. Everything he could have ever dreamed of, everything he feared, everything he is, is reflected back at him in a thousand tiny pieces, showing him how they've changed, grown, become broken. The world they've built up is presented to him in the wreckage, and it ensnares him, traps him, haunts his dreams.

It's the only stability he has left, the only anchor to life holding him down, proving to him that he's not the only one here.


	24. Getaway

**Title**: Getaway  
**Rating**: K+  
**Character**: Seifer (minor Seifer/Squall)  
**Summary**: Seifer thinks about his yearly escape and about Squall.  
**Notes**: For the themes 'star gazing' and 'introspection' at the Fated Children LJ community.

* * *

It's a shitty little place on a shitty little corner of Balamb, tucked away from the rest of the town like it's unwanted there, but he likes it, despite that fact. It's the perfect place to run away to, the perfect place to come and unwind and get away from everything, from everyone.

The place itself is small; two rooms, a bathroom and a main room, with a bed tucked off in the corner of it, are all that make up that place. He doesn't mind, though, because he likes it small. It makes things simpler, easier.

He only comes once every year, but he comes without telling anyone – not Raijin, not Fujin, and not Leonhart – where he's going or why. He comes whenever he can't take that place any more and whenever he can save up the money to rent it out, stays for a night or two, sometimes just sleeping the time away, others sitting up and watching the sky and the people as they pass, and the next morning, he leaves without a trace. He doesn't take anything with him but the clothes on his back and money to purchase food to survive, doesn't even bring Hyperion, because he has no need for it; his stays there are short, but without them, he thinks he might just fall apart.

He's been coming out here since he found this shitty little house three years ago, which really isn't that long, now that he thinks about it, but he likes to pretend that it is, just so he can pretend that he knows this place that much more.

Lying out there, arms crossed behind his head, grin on his face with the stars gleaming overhead, casting silver sprays of light over everything around him, he thinks that he'd like to bring Leonhart here once, just to see what he says, just to hold him out here and watch the nightlife glitter overhead.

Maybe he will one day, but not for a while.

He wants to cling to the peace for as long as he can, first.


	25. A Sorta Fairytale

**Title**: A Sorta Fairytale  
**Rating**: K+  
**Pairing**: Seifer/Squall  
**Summary**: They make it up as they go.  
**Notes**: Title taken from the song by Tori Amos.

* * *

Seifer has him wrapped up in his arms, and they're pressed up against the wall, as close as they can, so they're out of view from anyone who might just walk down the hallway; although he highly doubts someone is going to walk through this hallway this late at night, it's better to be safe than sorry, sometimes. He isn't worried about someone seeing them and someone knowing about what they do, but he doesn't want to have to explain what they're doing here. It's so much easier if people think they're just rivals and companions: there are fewer questions, there are fewer glances in their direction, and generalized ideas about them are a whole lot simpler than the twisted truth around them.

He's not even sure about the whole truth, but that's alright, perfectly alright, because he knows better than to ask questions about them. Questions aren't worth his time.

The hallway they're in is so far back into Garden that he's almost positive they're safe. Standing on tiptoe, he can wrap his arms around Seifer's neck perfectly, and Seifer's hands are running up and down his ribs, fingers tracing his body and hips, memorizing his skin and each little scar that mars his flesh, each little curve of his form.

With his back pressed to the metal wall, he feels comfortable in Seifer's grip. He's blocked completely from view, pushed up and tight to the metal, and he leans up those few required inches, trapping Seifer's mouth in a deep kiss that fills him with warmth and a dancing in his gut, fluttering against his insides.

Seifer pulls back from the kiss to nip at the base of his ear and the top of his neck, whispering gentle words to him, mumbles and nonsense and praises and "shh, no one's gonna find us here" and he doesn't _really _worry that someone is going to walk up on them, because, Hyne damn them, he could care less what they thought about the two of them. They're making this up as they go along, because neither of them really knows what's happening here, other than this feels just right to them, just _perfect_. A little taste of perfection, and he arches up into Seifer's grip when his hands, warm and strong and calloused from years of battles and gunblade wielding and fire scorching his palms, run over his chest and down his abs and around his hips.

He presses up and kisses Seifer again, softer this time, savoring the touch. Seifer kisses back, holding back the kiss for a little while before he gives in and crushes his lips harder down, and he falls into the rhythm and passion of it, moaning into Seifer's mouth, his arms around Seifer's neck tightening and holding him almost possessively to his body.

They make things up as they go along, but that's okay, because they feel better knowing that neither of them has no idea what's going on, have no idea where this is going or what's happening next. They've always enjoyed that spark of uncertainty, because set paths and destiny and fate never really suited them at all, and they'd much rather make up their own stories, anyway.


	26. Predestined

**Title**: Predestined  
**Rating**: K+  
**Pairing**: Seifer/Squall  
**Summary**: Seifer never really did believe in destiny.

* * *

Matron's always told them that they were special, that there was something about them that made them unique; she liked to talk about destiny and fate and all of that other stuff that Seifer never really believed in, because he never really did like the idea about all of his choices and all of his mistakes being set before he could make them. He liked to live his own life, he said, and he wasn't going to let some "greater force" (or whatever it was that made all of those decisions for him) decide how he was going to live, how he was going to die, and everything in between.

Seifer assumes that destiny is just something people make up to make themselves feel better about the lives they can't really control. He likes to think he's his own person, even if sometimes he thinks that he'd rather be someone else, if only because, then, he might not have made the same mistakes as he did, and he might be a little more welcomed here, and he might not have as much blood on his hands. He doesn't regret what he did, not really – he knows he'd make the same choice if he were given a chance to go back and redo everything, but, sometimes, he thinks he'd like to be in someone else's position, with someone else's choices and just a little less ego and a little more reserve. Sometimes he thinks he wouldn't mind being a bit like Squall, although when he thinks that, he realizes how much alike they already are, and that wouldn't be making much of a difference, now, would it, because Squall'd just make the same choices he did, if given the opportunity, wouldn't he?

In the end, he guesses he doesn't _really_ mind being the way he is, because, when he's sprawled out here, spread out on his back with the thin, white Garden sheets pooled around his bare waist, one arm wrapped as tight and possessive as it can be around Squall's pretty little hips, holding him closer than he's ever thought they'd get in this lifetime, and Squall sleeps away, face pretty and pleasant and nowhere near as rough and icy as it is when he's awake, he thinks he's done a pretty damn good job making his own destiny.


	27. Puzzle Pieces

**Title**: Puzzle Pieces  
**Rating**: K+  
**Characters**: Seifer, Squall  
**Summary**: Seifer realizes how well they go together.  
**Notes**: For the themes 'ice,' 'change,' and 'light and dark' at the Fated Children LJ community.

* * *

Squall is stiff professionalism, all ice and frowns and thick, frosty masks, tied together with biting words and a cool apathy that makes him so detached from everything Seifer sometimes wonders if he's really even there at all. He's polished and perfect, the Garden's Commander, the best student, a hero, and he's gorgeous and has a father and a lover and everything he could ever want, and Seifer thinks he's way too perfect for his own good. He's good at what he does, he's loved by most (but they don't love him nearly as much as he does, and Seifer grins about that, because it's a special privilege to earn the Ice Prince's love), and he's got a whole school of people who would be more than willing to throw themselves into the heat of battle, just like that, if their Commander ever willed it (not that he wants to any more – the war was enough).

Seifer is loose and carefree and a little worrisome, if you let him be, and he's fiery and impulsive and has never been very good at listening to people or detaching himself from his emotions, because he tends to let them drive him, most of the time, and he's a hopeless romantic and a gentleman at heart, but the only one who knows that is Squall, and he doesn't like sharing that side of him very often. He's really not that perfect, and he's not a hero, and he's not welcomed all of the time, but he has a place to stay, and he has friends who care, and he has a lover who has threatened to turn the world upside-down and back again if someone were to try anything to get back at him for everything he's done, so he doesn't really care that he's not as perfect. He's always thought perfection wouldn't fit him, anyway – he likes being rough around the edges and a little gruff and a little brash, because it fits him pretty damned well.

Overall, he thinks Squall and him balance each other out pretty nicely. Squall's polished and perfect for him, and he's brash and loud and gets his point across for Squall, because cold professionalism doesn't always work when it needs to, and Squall is there to put out the fires Seifer sometimes starts, and to clean up his messes, because he's never been very good at picking up after himself, even when he was a child. He thinks he and Squall look good together, too, not just attitude wise, because Squall's all midnight-dark clothing and chocolate-brown hair and pale skin and storm-cloud-blue eyes, and he's light-gray trench coats and sunlight-blonde hair and tanned skin and broken-sea-glass-eyes, and it works damned well, when they stand next to each other, when they hold each other and he gets to kiss Squall all over, until he's no where near as professional and stiff as he normally is.

He thinks the two of them fit together like pieces of some puzzle. They click together _just right_, they fall into their arguments and their fights and rivalry just as easily as they fall into their whispers and their worries and love, and it's perfect for him, because he never knows what's going to happen next, and that's good, because life would be pretty damn boring if he could predict everything that was going to happen. He thinks they've done pretty damn well moving on and growing up and changing over time, and he thinks he's grown up just a little bit more since then, and thinks Squall's changed just a little bit, too, because he smiles more now, a little more, and he's a little bit nicer now, and not as cold and cruel as he used to be.

They've done pretty damned well, in Seifer's honest opinion, and he loves every minute of the change and the companionship and the arguments, because it's how they've always been, and how they're always going to be. He thinks things are just right the way they are now, because he's with everyone he could care to be with, and he doesn't even mind half of them any more, really, because they've all slipped into this comfortable stage of companionship, no grudges, no regrets.

He's glad – he's not sure how long he would have been able to last on his own, anyway.


	28. Revenge

**Title**: Revenge  
**Rating**: T  
**Characters**: Seifer, Edea, Squall, Rinoa  
**Summary**: Revenge has never been sweeter.  
**Notes**: For the themes 'fear,' 'pride,' and 'smile' at the Fated Children LJ Community.

* * *

He tried to make a living for himself. Thought he was doing pretty damned well, too, for a while there, all power-filled and full of himself and _grinning _at the world, and, damn, it felt so _good _to stand up there, higher than everyone else, next to Her, with this power in his senses and knowing he was so much stronger than before, now. And, god, the looks of _fear _the people gave him when he looked down at them, the looks of admiration because _he was Her knight _made it all the better, all the better, and he _loved _every moment of it, loved every single moment.

Until Squally-boy had to come and smash it down with those words and those ideas of his, had to take his glory by defeating him in front of Her, trapped in a fucking cage like an _animal, _and he hated him so _much _for it, for making him look so weak in front of everyone who had once thought he was so powerful and a force to fear. So he watched with a sick sort of happiness when Squall fell at Her hands, tumbled down and down and Rinny screamed for him, because she was so goddamned quick to change her mind, and he got to stand over the pretty leader of this campaign against him and Her, and give him that look, and show just how powerful he was, and _Squall had actually looked scared_ there, spread on the ground and bleeding, like the fucking martyr he tried so hard to be.

And he was on top again, feared, and revenge had never been sweeter


	29. Tonight

**Title**: Tonight  
**Rating**: K  
**Summary**: A road trip to nowhere.  
**Notes**: Based on an idea from my sister and the song "Tonight Tonight" by TheSmashing Pumpkins.

* * *

The street lamps that zipped by lit the car up in an alternate beat that matched their pace, glittering and reflecting the deep red color of the car's hood and looking like a shining gemstone. The leather on the steering wheel felt firm and soothing beneath his bare palms, and he tapped his fingers along it, a gentle _taptap_ in the otherwise silence. Around him, the darkness of night looked promising; before him, the dimly illuminated road glowed with a whisper of adventure and new horizons; beside him, the gentle murmur of Squall's sleeping breaths comforted him.

He spared Squall a glance out of the corner of his eye. His head was propped against his folded jacket, pressed to the cool glass of the passenger's window. His breath formed a mist of moisture against the glass where it curled and spread in its own pattern. His lips were parted gently; his face was lax and free of the creases of being forced to grow up too fast and the stress that weighed him down. His hands were folded on his lap, and Seifer wanted to reach out and take one in his.

He ignored the urge, and flicked his eyes back to the road.

The streets were bare, full of promise. In the distance, he could see morning creeping over the horizon in a splash of orange and red and yellow and gold. He tried to memorize the colors and the orders they spilled into the sky.

He wasn't sure where exactly they were, or where they were going, but that wasn't the point.

Squall stirred at his side, gently releasing a breath. The moisture puff on the glass grew, reaching out as far as it could toward the glitter of light that reflected from the growing sunlight, and receded moments afterward as his breathing returned to the familiar drone of slumber, coming short of its goal.

Seifer did reach out this time. Squall's hand was smaller than his, but was rough and calloused like his, worn and cracked like his. His fingers were cooler than his own warm palm.

Smaller fingers tightened around his as Squall awoke, the glow of the sun finally reaching his eyes. Seifer shot him a glance, a faint grin teasing his lips. He didn't let it get the better of him, though.

"Morning, babe." Deep blue eyes, blurry with sleep, danced to his face.

He did grin, then.

"Where are we?" Seifer chuckled at the younger man, pulling his hand from Squall's.

"Not sure." A frown creased the brunette's face, but Seifer whipped it away with a sunshine-bright smile that made the corners of Squall's lips flickering upward.

"Where are we going, then?" Seifer laughed once more, deep and fresh and full of promise.

"Nowhere."

"Nowhere?"

He turned his face just a little bit, the sunlight catching his hair, his smile still wide and promising on his face, and Squall was fully awake now.

"Yeah."

He directed his attention back to the road. It glittered in the sunlight and the streetlamps, a black strip surrounded by trees and grass and plains. They were driving just to drive; they were leaving just to leave, so he could show Squall what he found after the war. So he could take him away from that tin can they sealed him up in, could show him all of the little places they never knew existed, the finer side of life, full of promise.

"I've always wanted to go there, you know."


	30. bullet with Butterfly wings

**Title**: bullet with Butterfly wings  
**Rating**: M  
**Summary**: Peeling away Squall's layers is an art.  
**Notes**: For brightspark's request for "love/hate pre-game smut." Title from the Smashing Pumpkins song.

* * *

Picking through Squall's layers is an art, a test, to see if he can pull him apart bit by bit and get to the part of Squall he knows is there under the coal-black leather and the blood-red belts. It's like opening a present, he thinks, pulling at it slowly and deliberately, peeling away the bow and the tape and the pretty, pretty wrapper – all of the _pretty, pretty leather and belts _– to get to the prize inside, the part he knows is easy to break and easy to lose, but so, so valuable, precious and new and _all his to keep._

He breaks him down with words and taunts and jeers, and, god, his breakdowns are always so fucking gorgeous, and it doesn't take long for Squall to be in his room with the door shut up tight and curses falling from those ruby lips, even as he's giving in, pressing against him and wrapping close and shoving him against the shelf at the back wall, just so he knows Squall doesn't want to give in that easily, won't go down without a bit of a fight, first.

Oh, but he does go down, in the end, like always.

Squall moans under his hands when he strips him free of all of that leather keeping him away from the world, the wrapping on the prize, and presses against him and kisses him hard and deep and, if he's too caught up in the moment and in his romantic illusions-and-lies-called-dreams, maybe a little meaningful, warm, slick, messy kisses on his mouth and jaw and neck. He peels away the leather and the belts and the fur, unwrapping him and spreading him out, a pinned-up prize, like a butterfly with its wings torn off and pinned up and held out for everyone to marvel and admire, only he's the only one allowed to admire this particular butterfly-prize.

He presses into him, fingers pulling at him and tearing him open, spreading him out, and he _doesn't seem the same _anymore, because he's moving and squirming and gasping out _his _name, and he knows that's the best part, because it's _his _name and no one else's, no matter how hard they tried to get the prize in the end. He wraps him close to his body and kisses him all over and cherishes every single scratch and bruise the nails and fingers dragging slow patterns down his back leave, because they're just as meaningful as the battle scars they give each other, only a little more sweet and pleasant and he'd never heal these away with a simple Cure spell. They're marks he wants to remember when he leans back in a cold, metal desk in Quistis' classroom and they sting at his flesh to remind him of what they've done, when he watches Squally-boy try to _forget _the whole thing beneath a layer of hatred, forget the marks he knows he left on his neck and shoulders and hips, and they go back to the roles of rivals and classmates once again.

Squall comes beautifully, too, willing and pleading and flushed bright red, like his skin's on fire, burning from the inside out, and he yells his name and swears how much he hates him – _hate you so much – _and – _yeah, I know you hate me_ – but he gives up in his arms anyway, and they lie like that, tangled up in starch sheets for just a little while, pretending they're something like lovers even though they're nowhere _near _that, before he slips out of bed and Squall bites his lip and pretends he doesn't feel the pain of the bites and bruises and muscles, and follows after Seifer.

At the end, he wraps him up again, pretty package sitting there waiting for him to pull open whenever he wants, with just the right words and just the right push, and only he knows how to force his way in, knows how to perfect this art.


	31. Valiant

**Title**: Valiant  
**Rating**: K  
**Character**: Seifer  
**Summary**: He wants to die a valiant death.  
**Notes**: For the theme 'old' at the Fated Children LiveJournal community.

* * *

He doesn't want to die young, because that doesn't sound right to him. A Knight should die in battle, sword in hand and enemies all around him, fighting the good fight. A Knight should die at the hand of his greatest enemy, struck down in a blast of glory and fire, going out with a bang.

It's what he's always envisioned his own death to be like. He's envisioned his death to be glorious and noble, valiant and brave. It doesn't scare him, because he's raised to know that death is a part of life.

He's reckless because he doesn't want to die from something like illness or old age. He learned to take risks now because he doesn't want to live to be too old to take them, because a Knight shouldn't die in some house where no one other than his family, if he has any (and he doesn't think he ever would), will remember him. A Knight should die in battle, young and beautiful, in the face of danger, and that's exactly what he plans on doing.


	32. Proof

**Title**: Proof  
**Rating**: K  
**Character**: Seifer, Squall  
**Summary**: A test to see if he is worthy.  
**Notes: **Regardless of the fact that this is posted one day late, this was written for Squall's birthday, which was the 23rd. :3 Happy birthday to our lovely, broody little lion. Also, it seems the dividers aren't working. So I apologize for any awkwardness in this beforehand.

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_One, two, three, four._

He moves, and Seifer moves with him. The air around them is sticky and warm, and it makes the leather cling to his legs like fingers on his flesh, and makes the fur around his collar stick to his neck, an uncomfortable feeling that sends little shivers down his spine when he moves his head and the fibers pull along his skin. His lungs burn from the lack of oxygen; his face warms feverishly, his cheeks painted a rose-red contrast to the pallor of his slick, sweat moistened skin. His arms cling to the inside of his bomber jacket when he lifts them above his head and brings them down once more.

_Step, slash, parry, block._

It is familiar to him and, for this reason, comfortable. They are young, and they are naïve, although neither of them wishes to believe it. He has just turned seventeen – Seifer is already seventeen. For this moment, they are equals, even if there are months between them. For this moment, they share the same age.

It is a ritual. It has happened every year since they have arrived in Garden, as if it is Seifer's way to test him, to see if he is strong enough to claim one more year to his age.

_One, two, three, four._

The sky is a black-and-blue canvas of twilight above them, around them. The dirt beneath their feet is cracked with the drought that has struck the land, but the air is humid and thick with a prelude to rain. When he moves, he feels as if he is moving through water. It is an added challenge to the one Seifer presents to him, and he enjoys the feeling of the damp air as it picks up in speed and tugs at his hair and the fur of his collar.

They are both lost in the movement and the count of the fight. It's a playful battle, but they treat it as if it is a great, imperative challenge that they must overcome to continue one. Seifer will not see him as one year older until they've finished, and he's proved himself.

Squall doesn't mind the challenge. It makes him feel alive. It makes him feel as if he really is aging, becoming stronger, becoming wiser.

_Step, slash._

The wind picks up again. Squall can smell the rain in the air and taste the moisture on his tongue.

_Parry, block._

Seifer doesn't seem to notice it at all, and, if he does, he doesn't seem to care. _Let it rain_, his face seems to say. _It won't stop me_, the swing of his blade sings.

_One, two._

Squall finds himself grinning, very, very faintly, when it does begin to rain, and neither of them stops.

_Three, four._

Seifer notices his grin, and is disarmed for merely a minute, and then is grinning himself.

When the rain picks up and it becomes difficult to see and dangerous to carry on, they stop, panting and hiding their smiles behind well-sculpted masks, and collars of coats, and taunts. He is watching Seifer and Seifer is watching him. He has passed the challenge; another year added to his previous sixteen, an experience to add to the past ones Seifer has put him through, teaching him, training him.

The rain stops when they begin to return to Garden, tired and worn-out, their muscles weak and flaring with numb, pleasant soreness, their smiles hidden and faint but there none-the-less.

They walk back to Garden side by side, their shoulders close but not close enough, the sky a black-and-blue canvas that spreads out all around them, a backdrop just for this occasion.


End file.
